Another Round Of Heavy Rain For Parts Of The South

Follow Meteorologist D.J. Kayser on Twitter (@dkayserwx) or on Facebook (Meteorologist D.J. Kayser).

As has been the story a lot recently, the potential of flooding rains takes center stage across potions of the U.S. over the next few days. Already we saw reports of it over the past 24 hours from the upper Midwest into the south and southwest, with more expected into the middle of the week.

Flooding Monday into Early Tuesday

A wide swath of heavy rain has fallen within the past day from the panhandle of Texas all the way to the Great Lakes – with some areas picking up over 3″ of rain, some within a very short amount of time.

Check out some of these rainfall totals on Monday across the Plains – over three inches in parts of Iowa and Kansas!

The Kansas City Royals game was postponed last night due to the rain, and will be made up today as a split doubleheader. Royals catcher Salvador Perez even took video of the flooding in the dugout at Kauffman Stadium.

The heavy rain didn’t stop last night. Already this morning we are seeing numerous reports of heavy rain and flooding from storms again. This is the 24 hour rainfall map for the Paducah, KY, area – where 2.98″ of rain fell between 2 and 6 am.

Meanwhile, through 10 AM CT this morning, Abilene, TX, saw 6.29″ of rain so far today. That would make today the wettest July day on record for the Abilene area – and the third wettest overall day on record as well. (SEE UPDATE BELOW)

 

Here are the wettest days in Abilene history – wettest is 6.54″ set back on May 11th, 1928.

[UPDATE: Abilene ended up breaking the record wettest day on record this morning at 11:09 AM with 6.58″ of rain so far today. See tweet from NWS San Angelo below.]

Heavy rain has also been falling in the Branson, MO, area – where Flash Flood Emergencies were in effect earlier today due to 4″+ of rain that caused massive flooding.

Rain Forecast

The cold front we talked about yesterday is stalling out over portions of the southern Plains. This will set up the potential for heavy thunderstorms as moisture gets brought up toward the front from the Gulf of Mexico. Heavy rain is possible all the way into parts of the Ohio Valley, who is already soaked from recent periods of heavy rain.

Some of the heaviest rain, however, will fall over Oklahoma and Texas, where 4″+ is possible in spots. Of course, they’ve already had a soaking few months, so more moisture is really not needed right now. More on that in a moment.

Because of the heavy rain potential, numerous Flash Flood Watches have been issued across the southern Plains.

(MAP: Latest Watches, Warnings and Advisories)

Rain This Year

Of course, many of these areas have already seen excessive rain this year – with some, according to analysis, picking up over 45″ of rain just a little over half way through the year.

In the Oklahoma City area, a place that could easily pick up 2″+ over the next five days, it is already the wettest start to the year on record when you take the period of January 1st through July 6th. Through yesterday OKC has picked up 38.81″ of rain – far surpassing second place of 34.02″ for the same period in 1908.

And in Amarillo, they were sitting at second place in the wettest January 1st through July 6th on record with 19.99″ – just a little behind 1960 who saw 20.13″ during the same period.

(CHECK OUT YOUR FORECAST: wx.aerisweather.com)

– Meteorologist D.J. Kayser